Christmas Catastrophes

Hello again, friends and Merry Christmas! Okay, I’m aware that it’s January 5th, but my Christmas spirit is still very much alive (and my tree is very much still up. What? Nothing.).

I wanted to quickly share with you the happy disaster that was our Christmas this year. It was my very first year hosting our families for this joyous holiday and boy, was it interesting.

First, lemme throw in a cute ass picture of my big one-year-old.

Piper celebrated her first birthday on December 13th and just like every other mom, I am utterly shocked at how time works. WHY IS SHE ONE!?

Last year, Pip was merely a wrinkled little squishy thing, so I knew this year was going to be big for us.

I took the entire week before Christmas off work so that I could properly be holly and jolly. Roban had to work (sucker), so her Chicklets tagged along with Pip and me for most of the week. We did a lot of last minute shopping, cookie baking, gift wrapping, and “Home Alone” watching.

Disaster #1 of the week: Sophia launching an entire open bottle of tiny sprinkles across my brand new house. This incident was not photographed due to me having a very mild meltdown.

Why is the carpet all wet, Todd!?

On Christmas Eve Eve Eve, these two hooligans joined the party. Grumps and Steppie didn’t know what they were in for this year.

Things really started to fall apart on Christmas Eve. As I was cooking a fancy French dish called Coq au Vin (I make this recipe), my beloved iPhone suffered a tragic tumble into my pot of boiling potatoes. RIP, old friend.

In a tizzy over murdering my phone, I dribbled bacon grease onto the stovetop and an actual FIRE erupted in my kitchen. There were FLAMES engulfing my Christmas Eve dinner.

No worries, though. The fire ended up putting itself out as I was screaming calmly fetching a pale of water.

Just as I was pulling myself together and making sure I had everything set for Christmas dinner the following evening, something dawned on me. The HAM. The f**king CHRISTMAS HAM. It had been my responsibility to run to Honey Baked Ham DAYS before to retrieve the Christmas ham. This realization hit me and I proceeded to spout off with a few unladylike words followed by my family saying “what NOW!?”

Have no fear. My mom knows a ham guy. She met him in a dark ally and saved Christmas dinner.

After our dramatic meal, I was determined to make the rest of Christmas Eve special. We turned on the original “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” while Piper literally took her very first steps. She said, “hold on, Mom. I have one more trick up my sleeve to impress Santa.”

The stocking were hung by the chimney with (very little) care in hopes that Saint Nick soon would be there. Then the dog ate Saint Nick’s cookies and Mama in her kerchief had to put the cranky baby in her bed at 3 am.

I wound up being the one jumping on everyone else’s bed on Christmas morning. SANTA CAME! GET UP, GET UP, GET UP.

Pip got a kick out of all the goodies in her stocking. How did Santa even know that she loves binkies and little plastic balls?

The whole family arrived just in time for some brunching and bubbly.

Papa Dave can’t hang, though.

The evolution of the Chicklets’ pet name for me:

Nidnee

Ninny

NinNin

And sometimes I’m just “Nin.”

Let it be known that my sister and I have a very strange connection. No, we’re not twins. We’re twelve years apart. However, our brains are most definitely linked in some weird way. We call it “Uterfi” which is a word we made up for “uterus wifi.” Freakin’ hilarious, I know.

Anywho, as you may have heard, we’re off to Paris (AGAIN!) this February. It’s going to be effing cold. So, Roban’s Christmas gift to me was a FABULOUS pair of Hunter boots and an adorable hat. My gift to her? A FABULOUS pair of Hunter boots and an adorable hat. Uterfi, man. I’m telling you.

Here we see a wild Frib dog in her natural habitat hunting for Christmas dinner scraps.

Every hilariously disastrous Christmas story comes with a finale. As the evening wound down and the family said their goodbyes, I felt like I could finally breathe out and pat myself on the back for surviving.

WRONG.

As I’m clearing the table of leftover back ally ham, I hear a blood curdling scream coming from my step-mom who was elbow deep in dishes. I rushed into the kitchen to find her standing in a massive puddle of water next to the sink. You guessed it. The pipes exploded.

Jesus take the freakin’ wheel. Joan and I frantically began clearing the area of chunks of potato skins, egg shells, and other yummy nibbles that flew out of the disposal during the explosion. The Shop Vac we received for Christmas hadn’t sparked much excitement in me until this very moment. I was bowing down to that beautiful machine by the end of the kitchen swamp drainage.

My dad and husband worked diligently to fix the pipes and we didn’t even have to call an emergency plumber (aka my handy brother-in-law). An hour later, the dishes were spotless and I was pouring myself a gigantic glass of alcohol.

So, this year certainly was not the perfect Christmas that I had envisioned in my head all these years. It was better. I will forever have stories to tell and memories to relive. No matter how many things go wrong, my family will never fail to help make light of the situation and keep me laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

My favorite season has come and gone yet again. I can’t wait to do it all again next year. Except maybe the fire. Let’s skip the fire part.

3 Comments

This is what I absolutely love you! This post literally made me laugh so much I cried, because I can totally picture how you handled every situation. PS…the Dave sleeping shot gave me a nice chuckle too. Reminded me of those Paris staking days.